


the trade

by bloodsweatspit



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26474653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodsweatspit/pseuds/bloodsweatspit
Summary: ziwa mueller, traumatized lionfish, thinks about mike townsend & jaylen hotdogfingers
Kudos: 13
Collections: Canada Moist Talkers Fanfiction





	the trade

the people are singing about mike townsend.

ziwa sits in the dugout, staring at the empty field. the last game ended much earlier in the day than usual; aside from a few janitors collecting peanut shells, it’s just them now, all alone in the stadium listening to other games on their headphones. they’ve just switched from the lovers at sunbeams game - it was getting boring, listening to them sweep the other teams. ziwa wants the other games to run as long as possible. they want to fall asleep listening to bats cracking, the chatter of the crowd, the cries of birds somewhere across the continent. ziwa is so _tired_ all the time lately.

mooney just helped raise the goddamn dead, but she isn’t tired - if anything, she’s energized by the success. workman, true to their name, shows up and gets the hits in even when the rest of them are off the rails on necromancy or mourning. ortiz never tires, and it’s not just because he’s the kind of guy who gets up early to bring everyone else their daily coffee. maybe it’s how he holds his energy back. saves it for the 99th game of the season. ortiz knows how to temper himself; ziwa doesn’t know how to do anything except swing for the stands or shut down entirely.

ziwa is tired.

and they click over to the garages game, and it’s between innings, and the crowd isn’t just murmuring - it’s singing. the entire crowd is all singing. about mike townsend.

it’s not that they didn’t _know_ what was going. they were onboard, even. understood the raw longing in hobbs’s eyes when they found him scratching out mystical diagrams late one night. ziwa‘s still fine with the whole necromancy bit. they just... never thought about the other end of it. at least not consciously. not until it had actually _happened_ , manifested itself into physical reality before them all that election day. not until jaylen walked out and mike walked into the unknown.

and mike gets to be a _hero_ for it. mike gets to _rest._ he gets to know that someone beloved is out in the sunshine again. smiling and squinting into the light and grinding their toe into the dirt at home plate. he gets to bring the beloved back into the world, and no one calls him a coward for wanting to leave. why is he so _lucky_ -

their headphones go silent. the game is over. quiet. until the next day begins.

ziwa heaves up onto their feet, feeling their own weight acutely. there won’t be a second shot at what mike did. what strange forces that aligned, across disparate teams and rivalries - what was drawn out of yellowstone park to power the magic - ziwa knows that won’t happen again. not for anyone. no matter how special they were or how much someone else might want to go into the shadows.

it’s time for them to go home again. to try for another brief period of sleep, if not actual rest. 

they’ll be back again in the morning. what else could they possibly do?


End file.
